


Listen as You Die

by SeaSpectre160



Series: Whumptober 2019 [13]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: "stay with me", Asphyxiation, Fire, Gen, Near Death Experiences, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24372205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaSpectre160/pseuds/SeaSpectre160
Summary: WHUMPTOBER 2019 PROMPT #17: "STAY WITH ME"“Whoa, hey, James, stay with me, man!” Winn was doing his very best not to panic, but not doing a very good job at it. “The fire department’s almost there, just stay with me!”
Relationships: James "Jimmy" Olsen & Winn Schott Jr.
Series: Whumptober 2019 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1502108
Kudos: 2





	1. "Stay with me"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so I managed to get this done on time, but just barely. The new chapter of ‘Reawakening’ took _way_ longer than I thought it would.
> 
> This one will be a two-shot, with Part 2 covering Prompt #19 ‘Asphyxiation’.
> 
> In terms of setting, this takes place between Seasons 2 and 3 of ‘Supergirl’.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Supergirl or any of its characters.

_Monday, August 14 th, 2017_

Winn didn’t care for slow nights. He knew that it was a selfish thing to say. Slow nights meant less street crime, which meant fewer people being victimised by street crime, and it was always good when there were fewer victims of _anything_.

But slow nights were _boring_.

Seriously, if Winn _wanted_ to spend an evening listening to police broadcasts about pulling over speeders (none of whom were apparently in the mood for a car chase, tonight.), he would have at least done so in the comforts of his own home, not inside a cramped van that smelled faintly of rotten sushi.

(Okay, so that _may_ been his fault for forgetting about that one tuna roll that had fallen in between the seats a couple of weeks ago. Some smells just don’t go away, no matter how many Febreeze bottles you use up trying to get rid of them.)

Anyway, it was a slow, quiet night, and Winn was leaning back in his chair in the back of the van, trying to balance a pencil on the bridge of his nose (yes, he was _that_ bored) when the police scanner crackled to life, startling him into dropping said pencil. ‘All units, structure fire reported on the corner of Binder and Plastino. Repeat, structure fire reported on the corner of Binder and Plastino.’

A quick check of the map confirmed Winn’s suspicions; the fire was only around the corner and two blocks down. He could actually _see_ a section of Binder Street out of the van’s window.

So much for a slow night.

“Oookay.” Winn sat up properly and turned his microphone on. “Hey, James, I got something for you. I just got reports of a structure fire on Binder and Plastino. Dunno yet how far out first responders are, or if anyone’s trapped inside.”

_“I’m on it.”_

He could hear James’s breath rate increasing as he started running towards the blaze; meanwhile, Winn got into the driver’s seat and moved the van, parking close enough that he could actually _see_ the orange glow of the fire and the _huge_ plume of smoke. “Damn,” he whispered, “That’s a big fire.”

* * *

True to their fears, there _were_ people trapped inside. Luckily, Winn had installed a filter in the Guardian mask, so James had a _slightly_ easier time of breathing as he ran inside. It wasn’t perfect, of course, and it didn’t magically turn the air that got through into pure oxygen, so it wasn’t long before Winn started hearing a lot of coughing on James’s end. Despite that, James kept going in and out, dragging people out of the burning apartment building.

“Dude, you can’t keep going much longer,” Winn cautioned him as James ran into the burning building for a third time, “This trip in has to be your last one.”

 _“There’s-”_ A trio of coughs interrupted him. _“There’s still some more-”_ Cough. _“People inside!”_

“And you won’t be much help to them if you’re on the floor, dying of smoke inhalation!” Winn fired (no pun intended) back.

It ended up even worse than Winn predicted. James was on his way out with his third rescue – a young child – when disaster struck. Winn could hear a loud crashing sound and a few curse words from James – something he would never say in front of kids under normal circumstances.

“Wait, what was that?! James, what happened?!”

 _“Part of the hallway-”_ Cough, cough, cough. _“-collapsed.”_ Cough, COUGH. _“We can’t-”_ Cough, cough, cough, cough. _“-get through.”_

“Oh, _shit_!” Winn practically dove over to his scanner. No good. The fire department had been busy elsewhere on another call, and while some cops were on the scene, they probably didn’t have the equipment needed to get James out of there. On top of that, Winn had already texted Kara, only to remember right after hitting SEND that she, J’onn, and Clark had gone down to help relief efforts for the monsoon floods in Bangladesh.

By now, all he could hear on the other end of the comms was coughing.

“Whoa, hey, James, stay with me, man!” Winn was doing his very best not to panic, but not doing a very good job at it. “The fire department’s almost there, just stay with me!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next Whumptober entry, for Prompt #18 ‘Muffled Scream’ is the first chapter of another new fic, ‘Damsel in Distress’. It will be a crossover between ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Criminal Minds’. The earliest dates I can give you are Monday, June 1st for that, and the 8th for Chapter 2 of this.


	2. Asphyxiation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I finally got this up before the day ended. This is only a two-shot, so there won’t be anything more.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Supergirl or any of its characters.

When James was a kid, he’d briefly considered becoming a firefighter when he grew up. A man from the local fire station had come to his school and talked to the kids about his job, and had even introduced them to his dog. James hadn’t been the only child to think he was the coolest adult on the planet.

(Well, the second-coolest, in James’s point of view, because no one could take that title from his Dad.)

As he got older, his goals naturally grew up with him. But he still had a deep respect for all the men and women who put their lives on the line to rescue people from burning buildings.

That respect was even stronger in this moment, as he staggered through smoke-filled hallways, looking for the little boy who was still trapped inside, according to his distraught cousin outside. He could barely breathe, but he had to keep going. That child needed him to.

 _“Dude, you can’t keep going much longer,”_ Winn’s voice crackled in his ear, _“This trip in has to be your last one.”_

“There’s-” A trio of coughs interrupted him. “There’s still some more-” Cough. “People inside!”

_“And you won’t be much help to them if you’re on the floor, dying of smoke inhalation!”_

Before James could come up with a rebuttal – even if the more practical part of his mind agreed with Winn – disaster struck.

With a deafening _crash_ that made him practically jump out of his skin, a portion of the hall ceiling right in front of him crumbled and collapsed. Some of it would have landed on him and the boy, if he hadn’t reflexively jumped back, several words that would have had his mother washing his mouth out with soap bursting out of him. The burning debris from the collapsed ceiling blocked his path pretty much completely.

_“Wait, what was that?! James, what happened?!”_

“Part of the hallway… collapsed,” he reported between coughs, “We can’t… get through.”

_“Oh, **shit**!”_

James was trapped. There was no other way to put it. Flames in front of him, flames behind him, and smoke everywhere. So, _so_ much smoke. It felt like it was reaching down his throat and strangling him from the inside. He could barely breathe; every time he tried to talk to Winn, a slew of coughs came out, instead.

 _“Whoa, hey, James, stay with me, man!”_ He could barely hear his friend’s panic over the comm in his helmet. _“The fire department’s almost there, just stay with me!”_

He was baking inside his suit. A lead helmet was great for shielding his face from X-Ray vision (but kind of pointless now that Kara knew his secret), but it was _terrible_ for keeping him from overheating. All that leather and Kevlar wasn’t helping matters, either. He would have to have words with Winn about that, once he got out of there.

( _‘ **If** you get out of here,’_ a corner of his mind whispered,)

The little boy in his arms was shaking with every cough. He had to get the kid to safety. He remembered passing a window around the corner; maybe they could make their exit that way.

James hitched the boy up onto his hip, as he had begun to slide down, and started staggering back the way they’d come. But it wasn’t easy going. The smoke was so thick, he couldn’t see two feet in front of him, to the point that he would up stumbling into a wall more than once. He couldn’t even tell if he’d made it around the corner or not.

His lungs felt as though they were on fire. His eyes were burning from the smoke stinging them. He couldn’t _breathe_. But he had to ignore that, and get to the door- wait. No, it was the window. Where was the window? Did he pass it? Or had he not even reached it, yet?

He twisted around to look over his shoulder, and that was a mistake. His world spun, and the next thing he knew, his back was slamming into the wall- no, the floor. The little boy he was carrying didn’t even cry out. That wasn’t good.

He couldn’t get up. His arms felt like they were made of lead, or maybe that Dwarf Star stuff Kara once mentioned.

Kara… Where was she? Vaguely, he recalled hearing that she would be helping out with… some big thing in… some place. He couldn’t remember, couldn’t focus. There was a little voice in his ear… Winn? What was Winn doing there?

Another crash startled him, and he marginally tightened his arm around the boy, unable to summon the strength required for anything else. Then something wrapped tightly around him from behind, and suddenly he felt the floor drop from beneath him – no, he was rising up above it, somehow.

The cool air now filling his lungs was, in that moment anyway, the most wondrous thing he had ever felt. It felt almost ice-cold against his skin, compared to the inferno surrounding him moments before, but he didn’t care.

He forced his eyes open – when had they closed? He’d needed them open when trying to navigate the smoke-filled hall – and blinked a few times, allowing those eyes to adjust to the light.

The first thing he saw was a red ‘S’ on a blue background.

Clark? Kara? Weren’t they somewhere else?

“-okay, James.”

Kara. That was Kara’s voice.

“You’re going to be alright, James.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next Whumptober fic will be an ‘Arrow’ one-shot, called ‘Not Okay’. It will be based on Prompt #20, ‘Trembling’, and will be focused on Rory, just like ‘Reversal’ was, but Rene will also be getting some time in the spotlight.


End file.
